Among the worst mistakes America has ever made is to bring into existence the Federal Bureau of Investigation — the FBI.
A national police force is an essential part of any tyrannical regime. Just look at any tyrannical foreign regime, either right wing and left wing, over the past 100 years. I will guarantee you that you will find a national police force. It serves as a useful adjunct to a big military-intelligence establishment to keep people in line.
Of course, we are all familiar with such things as COINTELPRO and the FBI’s murder of innocent people at Waco and Ruby Ridge. We are also familiar with the FBI’s fierce opposition to Martin Luther King and the civll-rights movement as well as the virtual certainty that the FBI orchestrated King’s murder. We are also familiar with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s longtime penchant for keeping secret files on people’s personal lives with the aim of blackmailing them into supporting whatever the FBI wants. We are also familiar with the FBI’s ardent support of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the anti-communist crusade. We are also familiar with the FBI’s active role in America’s political system.
Less familiar is the FBI’s ubiquitous practice of inducing people to commit crimes in order to justify its continued existence and its continued receipt of taxpayer-funded largess. That practice involves entrapping people into committing crimes and then proudly patting itself on the back for “keeping America safe” by supposedly busting dangerous criminals.
An example of this sordid practice is detailed in a January 19, 2024, article in the New York Times that involved four men whose lives were partially destroyed by the FBI as part of its attempt to make itself look good by creating and encouraging a crime supposedly committed by those four men.
The four men — James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams — were from Newburgh, New York, and became known as the “Newburgh Four.” Given the FBI’s history of viewing Martin Luther King and the civil-rights movement as communist agents, it’s not surprising that the FBI targeted four Black men for its entrapment scheme. The fact that they were poor also figured into the FBI’s plot, given that the FBI used the lure of big amounts of taxpayer money to induce the men to commit a crime.
The scheme was part of the FBI’s post-9/11 plot to invent criminal conspiracies to commit terrorist attacks. That’s what the FBI did with the Newburgh Four. The FBI used the services of an informant named Shahed Hussain. The FBI had Hussain infiltrate various mosques and identify poor people who could be induced to engage in acts of terrorism. That would enable the FBI to exclaim, “We’ve busted terrorists! We’re keeping you safe! Give us more taxpayer money!”
Hussain promised the Newburgh Four $250,000 if they would agree to participate in a terrorist plot. After several months of refusing the offer, the four black men, at least one of whom was unemployed and broke, agreed to participate in bomb plots at various synagogues.
The men were busted and given 25-year jail sentences. They had served 14 years in jail until a heroic federal judge recently ordered their release. As reported in the New York Times article, the judge, Colleen McMahon, called the case “notorious.”She pointed out that “nothing about the crimes of conviction” had been of the “defendants’ own making.” She pointed out that the FBI’s agent in the crime, Shahed Hussain, was a “small time grifter and petty drug dealer.”
Judge McMahon correctly pointed out that the “real lead conspirator was the United States.” She added, “The F.B.I. invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance.” The New York Times pointed out that McMahon added that the FBI “federalized” the charges — ensuring long prison terms — by driving several of the men into Connecticut to view the “bombs.”
After 14 years in jail on FBI-manufactured crimes, the Newburgh Four are free. But the best way to ensure that the FBI doesn’t destroy other people’s lives is to abolish it. Its dismantling would go a long way toward restoring freedom and justice in America. Anyway, criminal justice belongs at the state and local level, not the federal level.
Ukraine is losing the drone war. This isn’t a claim made by the Russian Ministry of Defense or by Russian state media, but rather the headline of an article appearing in Foreign Affairs magazine, written by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt who now heads a think tank, the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), advising the US government regarding artificial intelligence and other emerging technology.
The article titled, “Ukraine is Losing the Drone War – How Kyiv Can Close the Innovation Gap With Russia,” makes a wide range of claims, from repeating unlikely narratives regarding astronomically high Russian losses, to admissions regarding Russia’s many and multiplying advantages over both Ukraine and its Western supporters. Schmidt’s narrative is contradictory, and the article ultimately fails to deliver a coherent explanation as to how Ukraine can actually “close the innovation gap with Russia.”
It is a mystery as to why Schmidt is even writing this article in the first place, not being a journalist or a politician, but rather a leader of the US high-tech industry. But the article demonstrates how even at the highest levels of political and industrial leadership in the US, there lies a fundamental misunderstanding of not only the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but of the fundamental premise upon which all American foreign policy is built.
Why Ukraine is Losing the Drone War, and will Continue Losing
Schmidt’s article lays out a distorted account of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, following familiar narratives found across the collective West’s media. This includes the notion that Ukraine initially “held the upper hand in drone warfare” and had managed to keep “Russian forces on the back foot.” Such conclusions are drawn by focusing solely on the trading of territory, and in particular, on Ukraine’s Kharkov and Kherson offensives in 2022.
However, because the Ukraine conflict is fundamentally a war of attrition, the true measure of Ukraine’s success or failure is measured in the loss of manpower and equipment versus its ability to regenerate forces, replace equipment, and replenish ammunition stockpiles. In all of these regards, Ukraine has been losing the war from the moment it began – some may even look back in hindsight and conclude the war was lost before it even began.
The collective West for decades developed a large, for-profit military industrial base. It focused on maximizing profits through the production of high-cost systems built in relatively small quantities, while eliminating extra manufacturing capacity for large-scale production that rarely if ever was necessary to sustain the West’s “small wars” following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia, on the other hand, inherited the Soviet Union’s massive military industrial base, maintained certain aspects of it, modernized and expanded others, preparing for large-scale, high-intensity, protracted warfare within or along its borders.
From 2008, when US-armed and trained Georgian forces attacked Russian troops in the South Caucasus region, Moscow began preparing for a conflict by proxy with NATO it considered inevitable. From 2014, following the US overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government, it was almost certain that conflict by proxy with NATO would be fought in Ukraine.
From that point onward, Russia began building up the military industrial base required to fight and win a large-scale proxy war against a NATO-armed and trained Ukraine. Because Russia’s military industrial base consists of a large network of state-owned enterprises, a preference for purpose over profits prevailed.
Today, this fundamental reality is reflected in virtually every aspect of the fighting in Ukraine, from Russia’s advantage in quantity regarding low-tech artillery shells, to more advanced systems like main battle tanks, cruise missiles, and warplanes that both outnumber and outperform their NATO counterparts, to – perhaps especially – drones of all kinds.
Schmidt’s article admits that Russia is not only outproducing Ukraine in terms of drones, placing the number of drones produced monthly to around 100,000, but also admits Russia possesses drones Ukraine has no equivalent of. Schmidt singled out the Orlan reconnaissance drone and the Lancet kamikaze drone in particular.
Ukraine, however, has been provided with a large variety of drones produced across the collective West. It began the conflict with a number of much more sophisticated Bayraktar TB-2 drones manufactured by Türkiye. While these drones are formidable weapons, they are inappropriate for the battlefield in Ukraine, where they face Russia’s extensive integrated air defense network and Russia’s extensive array of electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.
Should drones equivalent to the Orlan and Lancet exist in sufficient numbers to provide to Ukraine, the inability to overcome Russia’s advantages in both air defenses and EW would still impair their use.
Schmidt, in fact, notes Russia’s EW capabilities as “superior,” capable of jamming and spoofing signals between Ukrainian drones and their operators. While Ukraine has been provided with EW capabilities as well, the collective West is admittedly years behind Russia in this field of expertise.
At one point, the article admits:
Most Western-supplied weapons have fared poorly against Russia’s antiaircraft systems and electronic attacks. When missiles and attack drones are aimed at Russian sites, they are often spoofed or shot down. U.S. weapons in particular can often be thwarted via GPS jamming.
While Schmidt spends the rest of the article discussing “winning the drone war,” he never actually articulates a coherent strategy in doing so.
He claims, “Ukraine will need to secure additional Western ammunition supplies,” without acknowledging the fact that such supplies do not exist, and will not any time in the foreseeable future because the production capacity to manufacture them in sufficient quantities does not exist.
Schmidt continues, suggesting, “Ukraine also needs antiaircraft and attack missiles to strike fast-moving airborne targets.” Just as with artillery shells, antiaircraft missiles were in short supply even before the conflict began in Ukraine, and have only dwindled further. If producing low-tech artillery shells in greater quantities will take the West years to do, producing more complex missile interceptors will take even longer.
Schmidt claims that, “Ukrainian startups are working around the clock to develop advanced drones that can resist spoofing and jamming.” Yet, this ignores the fact that many more Russians with far greater resources are working around the clock to develop better means of spoofing and jamming.
Ultimately, Schmidt’s “solution” to Ukraine’s losing drone war (and losing the war in general) is for “Kyiv’s allies” to sustain “financial and technical support.” He never explains how this can be done in a way matching or exceeding Russia’s own efforts to constantly expand its military industrial output in both quantity and quality. Russia began with and continues to maintain a headstart over Ukraine and its Western backers. Simply suggesting Ukraine needs more of everything doesn’t address the shortcomings that created these disadvantages in the first place, nor suggest any way of solving them.
Schmidt’s stated objective in the article is “neutralizing the advantages that Russia has gained.” The only actual way to achieve this would be to build a military industrial base capable of matching or exceeding Russia’s ability to research and develop new technology, and then mass produce and place this technology on the battlefield.
It would require the creation of massive state-owned enterprises able to subordinate profit to purpose, the creation of an education system able to supply a steady stream of the necessary human resources this expanded industry would require, and the ability to source raw materials and components from adjacent, likewise state-owned enterprises.
It would take years for the United States to complete such a transformation – years Ukraine doesn’t have. It would also require the political will to do so in the first place, which simply does not and will never exist because of the systemic composition of American political and industrial power.
America’s Tenuous Grasp on Reality, its Worst Enemy
Eric Schmidt has a close relationship with both the leading edge of high-tech American industry and the US government itself. His think tank, SCSP, says on its official website that its purpose is:
To make recommendations to strengthen America’s long-term competitiveness as artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies are reshaping our national security, economy, and society. We want to ensure that America is positioned and organized to win the techno-economic competition between now and 2030, the critical window for shaping the future.
SCSP sees 2025-2030 as a critical window in which the US must establish a clear lead over its “rivals” Russia and China. SCSP admits that the “margin for error is shrinking.”
Yet, Schmidt’s admission to Russia’s success in Ukraine and the advantages it holds over not only Ukraine but its Western supporters as well, seems to suggest that this critical window may have already closed.
The very premise that the United States can maintain techno-economic primacy over both Russia and China (and the rest of the world) is fundamentally flawed. All else built upon this flawed premise will find itself drifting further and further from the realm of practicality, and is reflected in a growing detachment from reality many Western leaders in politics and industry seem to exhibit, including Schmidt.
China alone has a larger population than the collective West. Its higher education system is larger than the United States’, graduating millions more each year in critical fields related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. China’s industrial base dwarfs the collective West’s, and continues to expand, while the West continues to overextend itself and contract.
Given these fundamental realities, how exactly would the United States still somehow match or exceed China’s technological development unless one assumes “Americans” are simply “better” than the Chinese, and despite all of China’s fundamental and growing advantages over the United States, it will still somehow fall short?
These same assumptions have been prevalent throughout commentary and analysis focused on the conflict in Ukraine. These assumptions have consistently been proven wrong, with disastrous consequences. Russia’s many fundamental advantages on the battlefield ahead of the vaunted 2023 Ukrainian offensive unequivocally guaranteed the offensive would fail. Yet, “intangible” factors were added into an equation assuming Western supremacy and Russian inferiority, to skew projections of the offensive’s success in Ukraine’s favor.
A similar formula is being applied to US competition with Russia and China, ignoring fundamental realities and applying “intangible” assumptions of Western superiority to sidestep the reality that China will irreversibly surpass not just the US, but the collective West.
This reality demands the US reevaluate its position and role within international relations, and begin a transition from a hegemon, into a constructive, cooperative partner with Russia, China, and the emerging multipolar world. But just as battlefield fundamentals in Ukraine ahead of the 2023 offensive demanded Kiev negotiate an end to the war in Russia’s favor, only to be ignored at catastrophic costs, these increasingly clear geopolitical fundamentals will be ignored by the political and industrial leadership of the West, by those like Schmidt, at catastrophic costs to the collective West.
It will be the multipolar world and the restraint and patience it has exhibited as well as the political maturity it exercises in developing and implementing policies, that will attempt to temper and manage these costs, both for the sake of global peace and stability, but also and most ironically, for the sake of the collective West itself.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.
The topic of “synthetic biology” — the science of reengineering living organisms to have “new abilities” geared toward solving problems in fields ranging from medicine to manufacturing to agriculture — came during several sessions held last week at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings in Davos, Switzerland.
Synthetic biology is the basis of the so-called “bioeconomy” valued at a trillion dollars in the U.S. and set to grow globally to over $30 trillion in the next two decades, according to Forbes. Initiatives like the Biden administration’s 2022 executive order mandating federal investment in biotech are expected to drive that growth.
Biologicals produced through synthetic biology aren’t just living organisms, they are GE living organisms made to kill pests or to generate nutrients that are then used to fertilize plants.
They also are major money-makers for the companies that make them and for their investors, panelists were quick to point out.
Reeducating consumers to embrace processed foods
Chris Abbot, CEO of Pivot Bio Inc., maker of Proven, the first GE microbe on the market, spoke about how companies like his are “leveraging technology so that we actually can produce a product and sell it at an attractive margin” despite volatility in the commodity market.
Amy Webb, CEO and “global leader of strategic foresight” at the Future Today Institute called Pivot’s GE microbe product “amazing,” especially given that “agriculture hasn’t changed in like 14,000 years, I mean, not really, right?”
Webb was likely referring to the Neolithic revolution when humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers as agriculture emerged around the globe — something that happened approximately 12,000 (not 14,000) years ago.
The Neolithic revolution was followed by a series of major technological innovations in farming throughout the world over thousands of years.
Such innovations include many of the technological developments these new GE technologies are attempting to refine, such as the Haber-Bosch process — the industrial process that enhanced the nitrogen-fixing that is key to soil fertilization.
Abbot said his company’s GE microbes are being trained to do similar nitrogen-fixing in more efficient and less environmentally destructive ways. At some, yet unknown, point in the future, he predicted the GE microbes will be less expensive and more effective than existing synthetic fertilizers.
That GE microbes are more “sustainable” is a key part of their branding.
On the “Net Zero” panel, Ester Baiget from Novozymes, who announced her company is about to merge with engineered microbe producerChr. Hansen, explained how her company’s products “bring us closer to Net Zero.”
“Everything we do leads to lower CO2 emission, lower chemical[s], lower waste, lower impact to the environment, healthier nutrients, higher sustainability on agriculture across the whole value chain,” she said. “We enable healthier foods, we enable sustainable foods.”
On the “Biology as Consumer Technology” panel, Dror Bin, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority, predicted a future of “bioconvergence” where biology will merge with all scientific fields. Bioconvergence is not “imaginary,” Bin said. For example, Israel last week became the first country to approve selling cultured beef, made by Aleph Farms.
The one roadblock panelists agreed they all face when it comes to growing the bioeconomy is consumer acceptance. People are needlessly afraid of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to Pivot’s Abbot. “They’re not that bad. You can use them the wrong way, but we [at Pivot] use a lot less chemistry because of GMOs.”
Biologics, Abbot conceded, are a little more “tricky” than synthetic fertilizers, “because you take a biologic organism, which has its own variability and they’re generally pretty fickle. And then you put it in a biological environment in soil with crazy weather that’s getting crazier every single year. And now try to predict to the earlier point how these things are all going to work.”
A report published last August by Friends of the Earth raised concerns about the unknown and potentially disastrous risks associated with GE microbes, which are fundamentally different from the already controversial GMOs that, as panelists noted, have already been highly controversial for decades.
GE microbes are living organisms that share their genetic material easily with other species and travel vast distances in the wind. The genetic modifications released inside the microbes could move across species and geographic boundaries with unforeseen and potentially irreparable consequences, the report said.
And because they are microscopic, their numbers are vast.
“An application of GE bacteria could release approximately 3 trillion genetically modified organisms every half an acre — that’s about how many GE corn plants there are in the entire U.S.,” said Dana Perls, food and technology program manager at Friends of the Earth, in a press release.
Introducing GE microbes into agriculture represents an “unprecedented open-air genetic experiment,” the report says. “The scale of release is far larger, and the odds of containment are far smaller, than for GE crops.”
The report detailed a range of genetic mishaps that can, and in some cases, have occurred in the process of genetic engineering, including unintended DNA insertions and deletions.
It underscored that when these microbes with these potential problems are released into an environment with billions of species of other microbes — most of which science does not yet understand — along with other living things, the potential problems are myriad and serious.
No framework for assessing risks
Those risks haven’t stopped companies from releasing them. At least two GE microbes, Pivot Bio’s Proven and BASF’s Poncho Votivo seed treatments, are already being used by U.S. farmers on millions of acres of farmland.
The WEF panelists predicted the number of GE microbes on the market is set to skyrocket — especially given that the U.S. regulatory system has no framework for assessing their potential risks and greenlights them rapidly.
Panel participants said they prefer to develop their products for the U.S. market rather than the European one, which has many more regulatory barriers for genetically modified or engineered products and approval takes six years.
The U.S. regulatory framework is so unclear, according to Big Food watchdog group Food Tank, that it is hard to know how many of these products are actually on the market. But, “we are likely on the cusp of a wave of new GE biologicals moving from the lab to the field.”
Pivot launched Proven in 2019. The company, backed by major biotech investors — including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — raised more than $600 million in private equity based on its promise to “disrupt” agriculture by reducing the need for industrially-produced synthetic nitrogen, replacing it with “clean nitrogen” from GE microbes.
But its own scientific studies showed no reduction in nitrogen use by farmers when the GE microbe is applied.
Pivot Bio’s patent application for its GE microbe Proven, marketed as a nitrogen fertilizer, lists 29 different genes along with many proteins and enzymes that can be manipulated to “disrupt” and “short-circuit” the microbe’s ability to sense nitrogen levels in its environment and “trick” it into overproducing nitrogen.
The company’s scientists also published a study showing they were surprised to find removing genes enhanced nitrogen because it could have just as easily reduced it.
Abbot didn’t comment on his company’s studies, but he did say Pivot is scaling up its technology, aimed at creating an “enduring growth trend.”
In the last several years, five major agrochemical companies, Syngenta (ChemChina), BASF, Bayer-Monsanto, FMC Corp and Corteva (DowDuPont) have acquired most existing biologicals companies.
They have “a long track record,” Friends of the Earth wrote, of disregarding the environmental and health impacts of their products, systematically undermining small farmers, obstructing the regulatory process and hiding the truth about their products.
Today, these corporations are partnering with major biotech firms and startups to drive the process forward.
Companies developing microbes highlighted on the WEF panels included the Danish bioscience company Chr. Hansen, which has been working in agriculture 145 years and has an existing library of around 50,000 microbes. Indigo Ag also “enhances” natural microbes to address different agricultural challenges.
Ginkgo Bioworks tells SEC releasing GE microbes can have ‘unknown’ effects
Through Joyn Bio, Ginkgo plans to further its commitment to “harnessing the power of programmable biology to enable sustainable food production and food security worldwide,” by partnering with different companies to develop “agricultural microbial solutions across crops and geographies through broad, fully-enabled technical platforms that address diverse market needs.”
For example, last month the company announced a new partnership with French biotech startup OneOne Biosciences to develop an “espresso-machine type” to “amplify” microbes with different functions, such as nitrogen-fixing, carbon sequestration, and more at the point of use.
Behind its utopian, “forward-looking statements,” according to its press releases, “Ginkgo does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.”
The company’s risk report, filed with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and reported by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), raised a number of concerns.
Similar to the risks highlighted by Friends of the Earth, Ginkgo told the SEC, “The release of genetically modified organisms or materials, whether inadvertent or purposeful, into uncontrolled environments could have unintended consequences,” which could be bad for business — its primary concern.
“The genetically engineered organisms and materials that we develop may have significantly altered characteristics compared to those found in the wild, and the full effects of deployment or release of our genetically engineered organisms and materials into uncontrolled environments may be unknown.
“In particular, such deployment or release, including an unauthorized release, could impact the environment or community generally or the health and safety of our employees, our customers’ employees, and the consumers of our customers’ products.
“In addition, if a high-profile biosecurity breach or unauthorized release of a biological agent occurs within our industry, our customers and potential customers may lose trust in the security of the laboratory environments in which we produce genetically modified organisms and materials, even if we are not directly affected.
“Any adverse effect resulting from such a release, by us or others, could have a material adverse effect on the public acceptance of products from engineered cells and our business and financial condition. …
“We could synthesize DNA sequences or engage in other activity that contravenes biosecurity requirements, or regulatory authorities could promulgate more far-reaching biosecurity requirements that our standard business practices cannot accommodate, which could give rise to substantial legal liability, impede our business, and damage our reputation.”
“Ginkgo’s SEC filing makes clear how unleashing Frankenmicrobes into the environment might wreak havoc,” said OCA’s Alexis Baden-Mayer.
That makes Ginkgo “Bayer’s most important partner in its ‘Food-as-Software’ scheme,” according to Baden-Mayer.
A spokesperson for RethinkX, a tech think tank and forecaster, explained “Food-as-Software” to The Defender in an email:
“Like software, food products will be continually improved through iteration as technology improves in both cost and capability and as these food component databases grow.
“Integration with information technology and the internet means that improvements in production methods and/or ingredients can be downloaded and incorporated almost instantaneously, allowing production to be fully distributed and decentralized — just like software.”
Baden-Mayer offered a more critical description of Big Food’s food-as-software vision:
“The Monsanto-Bayer business model is to ruin food and farming with pesticides and factory farms, and then, when customers clamor for ‘clean food,’ to offer it up in the form of new, lab-created synthetic Frankenfoods that can be marketed as toxin- and cruelty-free.”
Ginkgo’s report to the SEC, she wrote, “reads like a science fiction writer’s list of plots for disaster movies.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
Israel’s withdrawal of Division 36 from Gaza will not be the last withdrawal, as with the start of the Israeli ground offensive 20 days after the devastating Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, and with the mad rush to destroy all of Gaza, both humans and stones, they increased the number of invading forces until they reached about six divisions, with more than 120,000 soldiers, most of them elite brigades. Today, that number has been reduced to half after the occupation army’s human losses doubled and it suffered accumulated failure in the northern Gaza Strip and the central camps. Moreover, it continues to fail in Khan Yunis, the capital of the south, despite the genocidal holocausts it is committing, with 100,000 Palestinians falling victim to them, between those killed, wounded, or missing under the rubble. Moreover, they displaced two-thirds of the population of Gaza, with more than a million Palestinians being displaced to Rafah in the south.
The astonishing irony in everything that has happened and is happening is that the Palestinian people, who were left alone by those closest to them, except for a few, are the ones who made the difference with their legendary steadfastness, and the resistance factions made a difference with their remarkable ingenuity. The American-Israeli enemy is now in the position of defeat in the war that is ending its fourth month without achieving any of its stated goals. It hasn’t been able to uproot Hamas, or even weaken it, nor was it able to free its captives using armed force. Moreover, it hasn’t managed to win the media war and psychological battles, despite the huge differences in weapons, capabilities and the latest technology which are in favour of the invaders. Instead, it only managed to commit thousands of genocidal massacres against innocent, defenceless civilians, especially children, infants and women.
The resistance has displayed an extremely superior fighting doctrine. It films many of its battles with sound and video, thus intensifying the psychological and popular pressure on the Israeli governments both in Tel Aviv and Washington; dashing their hopes of creating any impression of an existing or potential victory.
The resistance implemented its precise attack plan on the morning of 7 October and proved that it prepared and implemented an effective defensive plan to confront the ground raids that it had expected in advance, while the Israeli enemy was suffering from confusion. The enemy believed that it would only be a few days or weeks before everything was over and they used everything in the American-Israeli military arsenal without achieving anything they wanted. Instead, they got lost in the muddy maze and were forced to change their military plans each day.
The belief was always that Israel knew what it wanted and that its dependence on American support guaranteed it decisive victory in lightning wars. However, the Israelis were surprised and shocked by what happened, as this is the longest continuous and consecutive Arab-Israeli war, and the Arab side is represented only by the Palestinian resistance factions. They had wanted it to be a war that would exhaust the energy of popular Palestinian steadfastness, and burn the Palestinian consciousness by pushing it towards a new Nakba and displacing the Palestinians from their lands, as was the case in the Nakba of 1948, but the Israeli-American policy-makers overlooked the fact that the situation had completely changed and that that the Palestinian people learned the lesson of the first Nakba a long time ago. They knew that leaving their beloved land would mean they would not return and that the enemy is not an invincible force. Israel has not won any war that followed the 1967 aggression, neither in the war of attrition on the Egyptian front, nor in the 1973 war, or in the war in Lebanon and its south. Nor did it win the multiple wars against Gaza.
The accumulation of the new Palestinian awareness, with the doubling of the number of Arab residents in all of historic Palestine, and it is exceeding the numbers of Jews brought to settle, who then fled through reverse migration, have all had a tangible effect in the shift in its image.
The new Palestinian generations have become increasingly aware of the reality of the present time, their creative struggle based on the most educated environment in the entire Arab world, the fierceness of the adversities they faced that made them capable individuals, and the involvement of many in a wave of resistance of a different kind, which developed from confronting the highest technological value possessed by the enemy with the sense of martyrdom that is the highest human value, and by acquiring weapon technology that challenges the enemy’s technology. Hence, the new resistance reduced the differences in the enemy’s technological superiority, while supplementing the combat doctrine which has a martyrdom nature with creative arts, until the new resistance turned into an invincible force, and its level of self-confidence increased steadily, reaching its peak after proving its ability to strategically deceive and humiliate the enemy army in the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. It managed to infiltrate its superior technological fortifications and drag it into the maze of death in Gaza, in which the enemy appeared arrogant, boasting its equipment and numbers above ground, while the resistance suddenly appeared like ghosts from unexpected places.
They emerged from cities of underground tunnels, which were dug based on brilliant engineering, and every time the enemy thought it figured out the secret and demolished the tunnels it found, others mysteriously appeared. This prompted the New York Times newspaper to announce a few days ago the American and Israeli failure to uncover the maps of the Palestinian tunnels, despite the research that has been nonstop, not stopping for even a day or a minute, using the most advanced military technology. Israel, along with the US, had estimated that the tunnels extended 500 kilometres underground or a little more, while today’s estimates indicate the tunnel networks extend 720 kilometres, making the enemy’s wars endless, perhaps even if the fighting continued for 1,000 days. This escalates the enemy’s state of mental agitation, with the enemy leaders losing their mind, since they started a war that they do not know when it will end, not even roughly.
All of their calculations were ruined and now, in the current dilemma, the Israeli government in Washington is trying in vain to be more sensible and advise the Israeli government in Tel Aviv to gradually withdraw from the war, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seems stuck in the maze, and arguments are flaring up between the political level and the military level.
Netanyahu and his most extreme and criminal companions, the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Miri Regev and others, sense the end of their government with the imminent defeat. They know that no one will take responsibility for the defeat and are throwing blame on the occupation army and its leaders. They are provoking Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and mocking the Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi, while the latter is holding them responsible, saying that the political level did not set achievable goals for the war and “military achievements” were lost due to the government’s chaos. Meanwhile, the expanded war council formed by Netanyahu, and joined by the National Unity Party, is also suffering from increasing defections, and its leaders are going against Netanyahu’s will and the will of his ministers, openly participating in demanding Netanyahu’s dismissal, whether because of the failure to reach prisoner exchange deals with Hamas or in response to the opposition’s desire to hold early elections.
The leader of the National Unity Party, Benny Gantz, appears to be reserved in assessing the results of the war, calling for making the goal of returning the captives or hostages the top priority, regardless of the price that Israel must pay, in reference to Hamas’ plan to stipulate stopping the aggression before resuming prisoner negotiations. Meanwhile, Gantz’s colleagues seemed more frank and accepted Israel’s loss. This is being openly supported by Gideon Sa’ar, who rebelled against Netanyahu and left the Likud Party years ago. This is in addition to a petition signed by 176 former Israeli military commanders, all of them calling for an end to the army’s bleeding and reaching a long permanent truce until everything that happened and is happening can be reviewed.
However, Netanyahu is rushing, like a blindfolded bull, to his death in the dustbins of history, and is challenging everyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He realises that the end of the war will bring the end to his political career and fears the increased popularity of Gantz and his colleagues within Israel. He dreamt and still dreams of the illusion of eliminating Hamas and the resistance brigades, while the most likely outcome of the war seems to be the elimination of Netanyahu.
This article first appeared in Arabic in Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 19 December 2024
China has once again called for a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, including a globally agreed timeline for the creation of a separate state for the people of Palestine. China’s position, which many in the West see as singularly pro-Arab, has been consistent ever since the beginning of the present phase of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has already killed more than 23,000 civilians, including more than 10,000 Children. China has been trying to navigate the crisis in a way that guards its main interests, i.e., its multi-billion dollar investment across the region. A wider war in the region could hurt China’s interests more than it could hurt any other extra-regional power. China has a deep economic presence in most of the Arab world. Although it has sound economic ties with Israel too, those with the Muslim world in the Middle East, including Iran, clearly outweigh its ties with Israel. China’s collective investment in the Middle East and North Africa is above US$239 billion. This is on top of their bilateral trade, which crossed US$330 billion in 2021.
By contrast, the China-Israel bilateral trade is less than US$25 billion. Until 2018, China was a major investor in Israel, especially in the tech sector. However, due to the mounting US pressure over Chinese investments coming with potential “security risks”, China’s investments have cooled down. These investment and trade trends are shaping China’s options to navigate the present crisis. On the one hand, these trends explain a) why China has taken a pro-Arab position, and b) why China fears a wider war in the region. Not only, a wider war could impact billions of dollars but also put almost a million Chinese nationals based in the region working on numerous projects in serious jeopardy. Evacuating these many people will be a nightmare.
Beijing learnt a crucial lesson when NATO invaded Libya in 2011. When NATO invaded Libya in 2011, it cost China a lot. According to figures released by the Chinese government itself, 75 Chinese companies, including 13 state-owned companies, were involved in Libya in about 50 joint projects. More than 35,000 Chinese workers were there. The China State Construction Engineering Corporation said that its residential construction project worth US$2.68 billion was under threat. The China Railway Construction Corporation reported that it had to leave US$4.24 billion worth of unfinished projects in the country. The State-run Metallurgical Corporation of China said that it had suspended two projects in Libya that have a remaining value of 5.13 billion yuan.
China cannot afford a similar scenario, which will have a much bigger impact than Libya – not only because investments worth hundreds of billions of dollars will be adversely affected but also because this war will most certainly create a global energy crisis that would affect China’s economy that relies quite heavily on oil imports from this region. China, therefore, not only detests the already ongoing war but also fears its expansion. Therefore, Beijing, alongside Russia and its allies in the region, is pushing to block any possibilities of a wider conflagration.
Besides the economic logic, a more social-cum-security logic is also at play for Beijing. Taking anti-Palestine and pro-Israel/pro-US positions can also put Beijing in the line of the fire of religious extremism. China has a sensitive “Muslim problem” in its Xinjiang region. Beijing believes that taking a pro-Palestine position will help it a) reinforce its pro-Muslim credentials, reform its image in the wider Muslim world and help against Western propaganda that accuses China of running “concentration camps”, and b) help prevent radicalisation from spreading within its borders. A pro-Israel position, on the contrary, could make Beijing a target of jihadi forces not only within its borders but also outside, i.e., in Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.
This position also has a geostrategic calculus. This strategy is tied to what came to be known as China’s “new security architecture for the Middle East” that Foreign Minister Wany Yi unveiled in September 2022. The minister highlighted this vision, saying that the “new security concept” is based on common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security. More importantly, it seeks to establish the Middle Eastern countries’ dominant position (as opposed to as extraterritorial players), who not only abide by the purposes and principles of the UN charter but also directly boost regional security.
Boosting the Middle Eastern states as dominant players is a key element of China’s push for a multipolar world order. Therefore, by taking a pro-Arab position, Beijing is basically reinforcing the Arab world’s position vis-à-vis not only Israel but also the collective West so that the latter behaves in a way that takes these states’ interests into account while pushing for a just solution to what China considers the “core” issue affecting the region since the end of the Second World War.
Multiple interests are at stake that Beijing wants to protect by taking this pro-Arab position. Thinking otherwise, were Beijing to take a pro-Israel position, it would not serve any of these objectives. For instance, a pro-Israel position will directly boost Israel’s position vis-à-vis the Arab world. It might even encourage Israel to expand the war to implement its version of the “final solution” on the Palestinians. The war, in this context, is more likely to expand than in a situation where China (and Russia) stand with the Arab world and their anti-US/anti-Israel position might boost the Arab world’s national power potential that might deter Israel’s brutal pursuit of the so-called “Greater Israel” at the expense of millions of lives.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Someone once said that if you fail to adapt to a changing environment, you can quickly become extinct. However, if Dr. Paul Marik is anything, he is resourceful, and adapts quickly.
Like Dr. Linus Pauling before him, Dr. Marik found that Vitamin C could be repurposed to great effect against a variety of diseases. Both scientists are known as out-of-the box and brilliant thinkers. Both changed the world. And both men stood strong for their beliefs despite existential career attacks.
Dr. Linus Pauling is one of only five in history to win two Nobel Prizes, one for Chemistry in 1954 and the other as a Peace Prize in 1962 for his anti-war activism.
Dr. Linus Pauling in 1955
However, because of his activist passion to save lives, Dr. Pauling was ousted from his position at Caltech – The California Institute of Technology – for political reasons.
“The mortality reduction Paul achieved in sepsis patients was an absolute risk reduction of 32% in his study, and then his hospital observed a 16% absolute risk reduction across the entire hospital (but his protocol was used in only one unit).”
“Dr. Fauci and others are promoting the idea of performing randomized controlled trials (RCTs). I believe that it is unethical to do such trials. How can you offer patients a placebo when testing a drug that you believe may have clinical efficacy? Every patient needs to get the best treatment we can offer; we could expect no less for our loved ones. Furthermore, once these trials are eventually completed we will all be dead, or the pandemic will be over! This does not mean we should not be studying the impact of these interventions; detailed observational studies can provide useful information.”
Similar to Dr. Pauling’s cry for nuclear arms de-escalation, instead of persuading officials, all Dr. Marik’s letter did was paint a bright red bullseye on his forehead. They viewed him as an obstacle to their agenda which in both cases did not involve the good of humanity.
The powers that be had already decided upon deploying a vaccine under emergency use authorization. Allowing Dr. Marik to save his Eastern Virginia University Hospital ICU patients with Ivermectin would have spelled the end of that vaccine emergency use approval. So, in a politically and economically motivated assault, Dr. Marik was forced out of his position and career. To add further insult, he was pressured to resign his medical license.
As Dr. Pauling so keenly observed decades ago,
“There is, of course, always a threat to academic freedom – as there is to the other aspects of the freedom and rights of the individual, in the continued attacks which are made on this freedom, these rights, by the selfish, the overly ambitious, the misguided, the unscrupulous, who seek to oppress the great body of mankind in order that they themselves may profit – and we must always be on the alert against this threat, and must fight it with vigor when it becomes dangerous.”
A lesser man might have given up. But not Dr. Marik. Despite facing financial, personal and professional ruin, Dr. Marik focused not on himself, but on others. With laser-like intensity, Dr. Marik found his footing on what mattered most to him, saving the lives of others.
And with that fateful decision, the great Dr. Paul E. Marik made history by researching and publishing the solution for cancer, a riddle that has eluded almost all of even the greatest scientists who preceded him.
Dr. Paul Marik, who had been plunged into the deepest depths of despair, came roaring back with a purpose driven by divine inspiration. And now millions of lives are better for it.
Dr. Marik’s Cancer Care Book Jacket
We can all learn from the similarities to Dr. Pauling, and how his later life unfolded. Pauling’s genius led him to discover not only the secrets of ionic and covalent bonds between atoms, but the beneficial effects of various vitamins and amino acids on diseases like cancer.
Pauling, who was afflicted with Bright’s Disease – a kidney condition – at age 40, found an unorthodox but effective way to treat himself using 3 grams per day of Vitamin C. However, this use of repurposed vitamins threatened the status quo, and was vehemently denounced as “quackery.” Dr. Marik has found himself similarly attacked by various monied interests.
Dr. Pierre Kory writes colorfully about Marik’s experience in his book, The War on Ivermectin, which is required reading for anyone who cares about the truth. While Pauling found that Vitamin C was friendly to his diseased kidneys, Marik observed that far fewer IVC treated sepsis patients required dialysis because most recovered – to the great dismay of the hospital nephrologists whose income depended upon a steady stream supplying their dialysis clinics.
Caltech corrected their error in dismissing him by establishing a symposium and lectureship series in his name. The Pauling Lecture Series at Caltech began its first year in 1989 with a lecture by its namesake. Their chemistry department christened room 22 of Gates Hall as The Linus Pauling Lecture Hall.
Similarly, Dr. Marik has continued undeterred in his mission to save humanity. With unbridled passion, he researched the existing body of medical literature on cancer and repurposed drugs and published his masterpiece, Cancer Care, the most comprehensive book on the subject.
While reducing the mortality rate in sepsis by 32% is monumental, his Cancer Care work will likely reduce that disease’s mortality by even more. Cancer is now becoming the Number One cause of death in the United States, and with the recent acceleration of “Unexplained Deaths” and Turbo Cancers around the world, Marik’s work is even more vital.
His book has rapidly rose the ranks to Amazon Best Seller. And Dr. Marik is organizing a series of cancer-related medical conferences, the next in Arizona in February that attracts physicians and healthcare providers from a variety of backgrounds with the common denominator of a desire to save lives, not to be politically correct.
Dr. Paul Marik is now finding his voice and true calling in the second act of his life, just as Dr. Linus Pauling did after unlocking the secrets of the atom. Despite their obvious brilliance, both possess an even rarer commodity, that of an unswerving moral compass.
In a year marked by dwindling public trust in key institutions and heralded by the theme “Rebuilding Trust” at the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos assembly, Emma Tucker, the Wall Street Journal’s Editor in Chief, has called for a reevaluation of how traditional media operates. Recalling a point when the mainstream press was the chief adjudicator of information and facts, she highlighted its demise that came with the rise of alternative media platforms.
Tucker, during a Davos panel supposedly dedicated to the preservation of truth, offered a lament for the era when the press held exclusive dominance over news and facts.
“If you go back not that long ago, We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well,” Tucker said.
“If it said it in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, then that was a fact. Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news, and they’re much more questioning about what we’re saying.”
Not only do her comments reveal a lot about how mainstream media figures see their role in society, her comment painted a clear picture of the power shift that has marked the recent history of the media landscape.
“So it’s no longer good enough for us to say this is what happened, or this is the news. We almost have to explain our working. So readers expect to understand how we source stories, they want to know how we go about getting stories,” she continued.
“We have to sort of lift the bonnet as it were in a way that newspapers aren’t used to doing, and explain to people what we’re doing. We need to be much more transparent about how we go about collecting the news,” Tucker added.
I’ve written a lot about the sins of childhood vaccination and the reasons to avoid their unnecessary, unsafe, and ineffective dangers.
What I haven’t written about is what to do when that unvaccinated child falls ill. Yes, they do still fall ill, but far less than poisoned children.
This stack aims to address that gap.
If you have decided to raise an unvaccinated child, you need to do a few things.
You should find a trusted alternative doctor, that is comfortable with high dose Vitamin C. As Larry Cook outlines in Section 9 of his free online course.
Find An Alternative Doctor Now
If you do not yet have an alternative doctor on your team, especially one who can give vitamin C IVs, I would like to encourage you to actively search one out before the need arises. High dose vitamin C IVs are extremely effective for all infectious diseases and other ailments as well. Plus, alternative doctors are going to have more treatment methods than just antibiotics.
You need to work at increasing your knowledge.
Parents of unvaccinated children need to work harder to obtain and maintain the knowledge that will allow them to be self-sufficient and independent (as much as possible) of establishment Cartel Medicine.
The Unvaccinated Child is an unparalleled naturopathic treatment guide for common childhood illnesses. Its style is reader friendly for parents without a medical background or for practitioners looking for treatment options to offer their patients. As children can contract many of the childhood illnesses regardless of vaccination status, this is a practical must-have book for any parent whether their child has or has not been vaccinated.
The Unvaccinated Child reviews the history of germs and how a child’s terrain is a better indicator of health or disease. The naturopathic foundations of health familiarize parents with the necessary steps to create long term health. The authors go through each childhood illness children are commonly vaccinated for and offer naturopathic treatments such as herbs, supplements, essential oils, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, nutrition, and physical medicine as tools to work through each illness. The book includes a compendium of naturopathic protocols with a complete how-to section, resources and references to arm readers with the means to effectively nurture children back to health.
This book is a must! If you don’t vaccinate, partially vaccinate or fully vaccinate this book can and will benefit you. There are treatments for diseases, when to seek help and what to look out for. There is a lot of great info in this book that I have added to my arsenal of homeopathic remedies! I feel more prepared and confident in treating something if it arises. – DHowell
They dedicate a chapter to each of the following childhood illnesses.
Chapter 8: Chickenpox (Varicella)
Chapter 9: Diphtheria
Chapter 10: Flu (Influenza)
Chapter 11: Hepatitis A
Chapter 12: Hepatitis B
Chapter 13: HiB (Haemophilus Influenzae type B)
Chapter 14: HPV (Human Papillomavirus)
Chapter 15: Measles
Chapter 16: Meningitis
Chapter 17: Mumps
Chapter 18: Pertussis
Chapter 19: Pneumonia (Pneumococcal)
Chapter 20: Polio
Chapter 21: Rota
Chapter 22: Rubella
Chapter 23: Tetanus
Finally, here is a summary of a range of the treatment modalities described in the book and some excerpts.
Comprehensive Summary:
Introduction
This book provides guidance on using natural remedies and treatments to support children’s health during times of illness. The remedies cover rest, diet, supplements, physical treatments, and environmental adjustments.
Basic Measures Rest
Bed rest is important to allow the body to direct resources to fighting infection. Activities should be limited to low-energy pastimes like reading or music. Even if a child seems recovered, extra rest helps prevent relapse.
Fever
Fevers indicate the immune system is working properly and do not need reducing unless very high (104+) or in infants. Methods like fluids, rest, and damp towels can support fevers rather than suppress them with medicine. Call a doctor with fevers over 104, less than 3 month old infants, or if concerning symptoms emerge like seizures.
Diet
Appetite declines when sick, so don’t force eating. Gentle foods like oats and broths give energy without taxing digestion. Eliminate dairy, juices, fried, processed, sugary foods which hinder healing. Fruit should be minimal due to natural sugars.
Edible Treatments Broths
Broths provide nutrients without taxing digestion, allowing the body’s resources to go towards healing. Bone broths were historically made by long boiling animal bones, skin, tendons to extract compounds like collagen. Commercial broths lack these benefits. Bieler’s broth is a vegetable preparation.
Herbal Teas
Herbal teas hydrate ill children who may resist water. Soothing, gentle herbs like chamomile or lemon balm also provide some medicinal value. Most herbal teas are naturally caffeine free. Rose hips, elderberry and hibiscus add tasty color. Sweeten with honey or stevia if needed.
Mushrooms
Many types of mushrooms, especially chaga, cordyceps, reishi and shiitake, contain compounds that support immune function. For children, mushroom glycerites (herbal extracts mixed with glycerin) are the easiest way to consume them.
Oxymels
Oxymels are preparations combining healing herbs with honey and vinegar used for millennia to aid recovery. Common versions use anti-inflammatory, soothing herbs like ginger, chamomile, lavender. They likely stimulate immunity and soothe inflammation.
Probiotics
Probiotics boost digestion and immunity via gut health. Research continues to demonstrate far ranging benefits throughout the body. Safe from birth, higher amounts can stimulate immunity but may cause intestinal distress. Give infants probiotics by placing on mother’s breast or in bottle.
Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements
Vitamin A
Critical for immune cells, vitamin A benefits conditions like measles and pneumonia. Use short term high doses only, as excess over time can cause toxicity.
Vitamin C
Important for immune cells and deficiency causes illness susceptibility. Use whole food sources where possible as supplements lose potency. Dose in smaller amounts through the day.
Vitamin D
Activates components of both the innate and adaptive immune system. Likely benefits a variety of infectious conditions.
Zinc
Limits viral replication, protects gut lining integrity, and starves bacteria. Enhances immune cell components like T cells, neutrophils, and phagocytes. Plays many metabolic roles.
Iodine
Has antimicrobial effects against diverse pathogens. Safest method is mixing with oil and applying to lymph nodes rather than internal consumption.
NAC
Precursor of antioxidant glutathione. Shown highly effective against flu and resulting complications. Use whenever mucous production accompanies illness.
Physical and Environmental Remedies
Hydrotherapy
Constitutional Hydrotherapy
Enhances blood flow using hot/cold cloths and electrical stimulation. Brings oxygen and immune cells to internal organs. Deeply relaxing.
Contrast Hydrotherapy
Alternating hot and cold towels over chest and abdomen pumps blood between skin and organs, enhancing circulation and thymus gland for increased immune response. Also relaxing.
Breathe medicinal steam containing essential oils or just water vapor to soothe congestion and stimulate immunity mildly.
Massage and Brushing
Dry Brushing
Light skin brushing towards the lymph nodes helps circulation of lymphatic system which lacks a pump. Helps transport fluid and dead cells.
Lymphatic Massage
Relaxing, gentle massage brings comfort while supporting lymphatic drainage of cellular waste. The lightest of touch is needed due to superficial lymph vessels.
Sock Treatments
Garlic Socks
Applying garlic via socks avoids consumption while benefiting from antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, immune boosting properties. Can be worn overnight.
Magic Socks
Hydrotherapy for feet and legs improves circulation, drains congestion, increases detoxification. See apothecary for details.
Excerpts:
“By lying in bed and resting, we allow those resources to be used for fighting infection and re-establishing normal health.”
“As scary as it can seem, it’s important to note that while a fever is a sign of infection, that doesn’t mean it needs to be stopped.”
“Normally, children don’t need to be treated for a high fever unless they’re less than three months old.”
“If a child does not want to eat, forcing a child to do so could hinder their healing capacity.”
“Rich in nutrients, easy on digestion and healing to the gut, broths have been used for centuries by healers.”
“For children, the easiest way to consume medicinal mushrooms is as a glycerite.”
“Evidence dating from 460 BC shows us this wonderful medicine has been used by doctors for a very long time to help stimulate healing in the human body.”
“Safe from birth, higher amounts can stimulate immunity but may cause intestinal distress.”
“Vitamin D is especially important for young children because of its immune enhancing effects.”
“When treating colds, it binds to the receptors that viruses would attach to inhibiting their ability to continue to reproduce in the body.”
“One of the safest, simplest and most effective ways to use it is when addressing an acute illness to mix it with a carrier oil, such as coconut oil, and massage it into lymph nodes.”
“Many children fall asleep or feel deeply relaxed after this treatment is completed.”
“Since babies have smaller torsos, a cool washcloth can be placed over the chest and abdomen to keep them comfortable if they have a fever.”
“For this treatment, smashed garlic is applied through a cheesecloth onto a child’s foot and socks are placed over them”
“The gentle, soft touch of a lymphatic massage can help an ill child remove metabolic waste products and dead cells from the lymphatic system.”
“This therapy works through the placement of hot and cold towels over the chest and abdomen.”
“Considered to be a type of hydrotherapy, magic socks can stimulate the immune system, drain congestion from the head and chest, relax away aches, increase circulation and aid in detoxification.”
“Steam inhalations are generally used by people that have upper respiratory conditions like stuffy noses or congested sinuses.”
“Since lymphatic vessels are superficial, light brushing strokes moving towards the heart are the easiest way to move lymphatic fluid.”
“The increased circulation brings more nutrients, oxygen and white blood cells to internal organs.”
Despite the chaos of losing the war, the Germans managed to secretly gather several divisions for a massive attack called the 1944 Ardennes Offensive. They launched this offensive after Allied Generals openly stated the war would be over in a month.
The Germans chose a weak point in the Allied line. The forested Ardennes was considered easy to defend so was manned by new units like the US Army’s 106th Division. It mostly consisted of green draftees and young officers with just 90-days of training and no combat experience. Soldiers of the 106th Division were pummeled by a massive artillery barrage as numerous German tanks appeared and attacked.
The division had no supporting tanks and just a few anti-tank guns. Terrified American officers took action by fleeing in jeeps as two regiments were quickly surrounded while the third managed to retreat. With no supplies or ability to fight tanks, most of the 106th Division surrendered after putting up a fight for three days.
Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, on January 3, 2024, on the commemoration of the 4th anniversary of the assassinations of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis:
[…] I now come to the third part of my remarks, devoted to Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood”. This operation was launched on October 7 by our brothers from the Izz al-Dine al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ armed wing), and our brothers from Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions joined them. The causes which led to this operation were recalled by the leaders of our brothers of Hamas, (Islamic) Jihad and other factions of the Resistance, and I myself spoke about it in detail in a previous speech, namely everything concerning the oppression of the Palestinian people for 75 years, the issue of the prisoners oppressed and persecuted in Zionist prisons, the attacks and threats against the Al-Aqsa mosque, the dangers of deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank, the state of continued siege against Gaza and the desire to push for an internal struggle, the ultimate goal of which was, as we now see, the deportation of the inhabitants of Gaza, but via internal struggles and economic and social strangulation. The causes and objectives of the Al-Aqsa Flood were therefore clear and well known.
On October 8, Hezbollah entered battle on the northern border of occupied Palestine, which is the southern border of Lebanon, in a front line more than 100 kilometers long. Then, our brothers from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq also entered the battle by striking the bases of the US occupation in Iraq and Syria, and with direct strikes against the usurping entity with drones, against Eilat and other targets. Then our brothers in Yemen also entered the scene, with drone and missile strikes against the usurping entity, and with the qualitative, huge, grandiose and greatly influential initiative that is the challenge in the Red Sea. In every sense of the word, (banning Israeli and Israel-bound ships to navigate) is truly a courageous, wise, epic and effective action, to the highest degree.
The course of events is well known to you, and therefore I am not going to repeat things that you follow regularly, every day and every hour. What has been happening for 3 months and to this day is on the one hand a scene of sacrifices, martyrs, wounded, houses destroyed, families massively displaced inside Gaza, in the West Bank to a certain extent, and even in the south of Lebanon: it is the scene of the price to pay, of the dangers incurred. But alongside this scene, we have on the other hand the scene of endurance, determination, steadfastness, courage, combat, resistance, challenges, considerable losses inflicted on the enemy, an indomitable character and refusal to surrender. And the first example, the first frontline and the most grandiose is of course Gaza. And the rest of the Axis of Resistance is at its image.
In the light of these two scenes, there are (concrete) results. Sometimes we get lost in such or such detail, but in this section of my speech, I want to step back and look at the situation in general. When we see the scale of the results obtained, their importance and the considerable nature of the accomplishments achieved so far, and when we add to this what can be achieved subsequently, we become fully aware of the fact that this operation was necessary and bore fruit, and we accept more willingly and with satisfaction the scale of the sacrifices made, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran and on all terrains and battlefields of (the Axis of) Resistance.
Allow me to quickly and succinctly cite the various achievements already obtained, even if each of them deserves to be devoted to an hour-long presentation, but we will only point them out briefly. And in truth, these are not my own statements, as I have only compiled some of them, and not all, because time does not allow me to mention everything. What I am going to tell you is what the Israelis themselves say, whether they are generals, former or current officials, analysts, experts and strategists from America or the Arab-Muslim world, and certain statements by Imam Khamenei, and many elites in the (Arab-Muslim) Community and in the world.
What I want to show you are some of the results that all this blood and sacrifice has achieved so far, results that will have a great influence on the future of Palestine, of the Palestinian cause, Lebanon and the entire region, but in particular Palestine and Lebanon, and generally for the entire Middle East.
I will list the points one by one quickly.
1/ The return of the Palestinian cause to the forefront and with force, after it had been almost forgotten and erased, which once again imposes the search for a solution everywhere in the world. This is why they come back to talk to us about the two-state solution, etc. Because before the Al-Aqsa Flood, the Palestinian cause was on the verge of being forgotten by everyone, except the Resistance (Axis) movements, with their stances, the annual commemorations of Al-Quds Day, etc.
2/ The failed Israeli calculations which counted on the fatigue of the Palestinians, their despair and the abandonment of their cause. The Al-Aqsa Flood demonstrated that these people, whose Resistance took the initiative to launch this operation, and which was followed by the endurance, determination and sacrifices of all the people of Gaza, all of this demonstrated that this Israeli calculation could not be more erroneous and illusory. The idea that the Palestinians will get tired, abandon their territories and forget their cause, and that the new generation, which is that of the Internet and social networks, will turn the page, is over. It was ended in the West Bank, by the Intifadas and the martyrdom operations, but the Al-Aqsa Flood came to deal it the fatal blow and bury it definitively. Today, Israel has clearly understood that it is facing a people who can never forget his land, his history, his present, his future and his holy places, and Israel’s elites express this with regret. Israel is mortified in the face of this ineradicable people after 75 years, and despite 75 years of repression, torture, imprisonment, deportation, refugee camps, and severe and very difficult living conditions.
3/ The increase in the level of support for the Resistance and the choice of the Resistance within the Palestinian people and the entire Arab-Muslim Community, despite the massacres and the attempts of some people to blame the massacres in Gaza on the victims, on the worthy men, on the Resistance (Hamas) shamefully deemed responsible of Israel’s actions, and to exonerate the criminal, the bloodthirsty assassin, namely Israel. And it also has a huge influence on the future of the Palestinian cause. After everything that happened in Palestine, they thought that this annihilation of the Gaza Strip, these mass murders and these massacres would make the Palestinians regret having launched the October 7 operation, and that the people of Gaza would abandon the Resistance and turn against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, other factions and fighters, but polls clearly show that the level of support for the Resistance, the Resistance movements and in particular Hamas, which is most blamed in the Al-Aqsa Flood and its consequences, has never been higher in the history of Palestine, the Palestinian people and the Resistance movements in Palestine. This has a considerable influence on the future of this struggle.
4/ The decline of Israel and its image in the eyes of the whole world, despite all the efforts made over the last 20 years by the American and Western media, unfortunately assisted in this by part of the official Arab media which have also worked to beautify the image of Israel, and to present it as a state of law, a democratic state respectful of human rights. With Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and what followed, and what is happening today on all frontlines, Israel’s decline is total, whether in terms of morality, humanity or respect for the rule of law. Today, in the eyes of the whole world, Israel is a murderer of children, a murderer of women, a destroyer of homes, guilty of deportation of populations, expelling them from their homes, their neighborhoods and their land, a starver of peoples, a terrible oppressor and a terrorist for civilians, author of the greatest mass extermination of the century. The image of Israel is broken into a thousand pieces and will not recover. And this will also have a great influence on the conflict and on the equations of struggle in our region.
O my brothers and sisters, recently, polls have been published in the United States, questioning American youth, these American people who do not follow our media, and are fed from birth to death by the American media which are controlled by Zionists or groups that support Zionism. But in the face of the atrocious carnage taking place in Gaza, we see the influence of the blood of children, of women and of the enormous oppression inflicted on Palestinians, and the benefits of social networks, which they designed to destroy Islam, our values and the Resistance, but the spell has turned against the sorcerer, and we see the story of Pharaoh and the sorcerers (defeated by) Moses (and giving allegiance to him) repeating itself again. Faced with the current situation, more than 50% of American youth support not only the idea of granting their rights to the Palestinians, but they support the dismantling of the State of Israel and the attribution of all the (historical) land of Palestine to the Palestinian people. How could such a change have happened (without the Al-Aqsa Flood)? Who could have imagined such an upheaval in US public opinion? Of course, we must continue to act on it and develop it further, and this will have enormous and considerable influences in the United States.
5/ What happened during these 3 months dealt a fatal blow to the path of normalization (of the relations of Arab countries with Israel), which aimed to envelop the Palestinian people (with normalizing countries), to make Israel a normal country and to make us forget Palestine.
6/ It has become clear to the world… In Lebanon, we continually hear this refrain about (the necessary) respect for the international community and international resolutions. The United States regularly lectures us on international resolutions, and will continue to do so, as do the Europeans and the West [reminding us in particular of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of the Lebanese militias, which targets Hezbollah], as well as certain Americanized and Westernized Lebanese, accusing us of being the only ones who don’t respect the resolutions of the international community and international law. The Al-Aqsa Flood has established more clearly than ever before the eyes of the whole world, although it is not something new, the identity of those who truly defy the will of the international community. What is the international community? When all 193 countries in the world, including large, important and powerful countries, demand a complete ceasefire in Gaza, except for only 10 countries, namely the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and others, and Israel trashes this resolution and couldn’t care less about it, who really respects the will of the international community and the UN resolutions? How many UN resolutions has Israel respected so far? From the first resolution (taken on the subject of occupied Palestine) to this day, until resolution 1701 (voted in 2006), as one of the leaders of a UN body devoted to human rights said, only during the last two months, the usurping entity has trampled on all existing international laws & resolutions. Israel spared nothing. And of course, the United States stands with Israel in brazenly disregarding and confiscating the will of the international community.
7/ If we consider Israel directly, let’s look at the very important results that have been achieved, and in light of which we must develop our stance. Israel’s strategic deterrence was shattered, even as they pinned their hopes on it and worked to restore it. Let us remember all the speeches made before the Al-Aqsa Flood, and all the debate about Israel’s deterrence capacity. The (regular) attacks against Gaza aimed to restore this deterrence. The power of Israel is a power of dissuasion, that is, it frightens and terrorizes neighboring countries and their peoples, in order to keep them at bay, to push them to surrender, to concessions, to submission, to renunciation of their rights and abandonment (of Palestine and other occupied territories). This is the history of Israel, which rests entirely on this deterrent force. It is a power of terror and intimidation, and that is its only strength. This deterrent capacity began to erode in 2000 (with the Liberation of South Lebanon), then again in 2005 (with the Liberation of Gaza), and further with Lebanon’s divine victory in 2006. And after 2006, they declared that they must restore this deterrence capability. But after the Al-Aqsa Flood, whether in Gaza, or after the opening of the front in Lebanon and elsewhere, especially in Yemen, this Israeli deterrence capacity collapsed. Why is it collapsing?
When Hamas and other Resistance factions launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, they were in no way deterred, frightened or terrorized. They knew very well the consequences of their actions, and anticipated Israel’s (murderous) reaction, but the cause deserved this level of initiative, and they were in no way deterred. When the Lebanese Resistance opened a front on October 8, it was in no way deterred, and indeed has never been deterred by Israel in its entire history; and today, Hezbollah is even bolder, and more ready than ever for confrontation and initiative. When Yemen took the initiative (attacking Israeli territory with missile and drone strikes and targeting its economic interests in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea), it was neither frightened nor deterred. Yemen gave no consideration to Israel. And in this regard, even the US deterrence capacity is greatly eroding. The Israeli deterrence capacity was not sufficient, and they called for help the US deterrence capacity, with its aircraft carriers, but even the US deterrence capacity was not enough, neither in the face of the Iraqi Resistance (which strikes US bases in Iraq and Syria and targets in Israel on a daily basis), nor the Lebanese Resistance (which has caused thousands of occupation soldiers to be killed and wounded since October 8), nor the men of God in Yemen (which are ready to enter into open war against the United States and its allies), nor anyone. And that is why American aircraft carriers are starting to leave the region, without having achieved any results. Thus, Israel’s strategic deterrence capacity is eroding, breaking and collapsing.
8/ The end of the (myth of the) superiority of Israeli intelligence. We have always been told, wrongly so, about the omniscience of Israel, its capacity to know everything, but this is not true. The Al-Aqsa Flood clearly demonstrated this.
9/ After the 2006 war, Israel launched the Winograd Commission, investigative committees and numerous studies, and reconsidered many of its strategies and postulates, correcting and amending its flaws, but since I don’t have time to address the subject in detail, I will only recall a sentence that they declared, namely that from now on, if Israel enters the war, it must be done on the basis of a “quick, clear, decisive and unequivocal victory”. This is what Ehud Barak and all the defense ministers and chiefs of staff who came after him said. Well, after 3 months, if we only talk about Gaza, there is no victory in sight, and even less a decisive, rapid, clear and unequivocal victory. Worse still, there is no one within the Zionist entity who claims to see any prospect of victory in Gaza. With their operation last night, they are trying to present an image of victory in the treacherous assassination of Sheikh Salah (al-Arouri in Beirut). But on the battlefield of Gaza, where is the quick, clear, decisive and final victory?
10/ The failure of the air force to achieve victory, even in a narrow area like the Gaza Strip. Of course, this is very important for us in Hezbollah, and for everyone who will think about national defense strategies.
11/ This is the most important and dangerous point (for Israel) regarding the results of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and everything that is happening in the adjacent axes and battlefields: the absence of trust of the people of the Zionist entity in the Israeli army, security services and political leaders. This goes to the heart, the very foundations of Israel’s existence and perpetuation. Today there are people who… I don’t want to use inappropriate terms, but I hope that their capacity of understanding will understand this idea. When some people hear Hamas, our brothers in Islamic Jihad or other leaders of the Palestinian Resistance factions declare that the Al-Aqsa Flood truly lays the foundation for the demise of the State of Israel and places this entity on the road to extinction, they laugh and mock these predictions, because they lack lucidity. But fundamentally, and I will read you a text which shows this, if Israel loses security, it cannot survive. Its people, its inhabitants will not stay there, because their link with the land is a false, artificial, hypocritical link, which has absolutely no authentic basis. You all know that in the original project of the Zionist movement, at the time of (Theodore) Herzl, 4 countries were envisaged to bring together the Jews: Argentina, Uganda, a European country and Palestine, which was just one choice among others. It was the British who brought them to Palestine.
In all the countries of the region, which are authentic countries, when for example a civil war breaks out in Lebanon for 30 years, Lebanon and the Lebanese people remain. When disaster and world war strike Syria, Syria and the Syrian people remain. When Iraq suffers siege and wars, Iraq and its people remain. The same goes for Yemen and other countries. But when it comes to Israel, things are very different. Israel is an artificial entity. Israel is a patchwork people, made from scratch out of people gathered from all corners of the world. Every Israeli has a dual nationality, and their suitcases are always ready (to flee Palestine in case of danger). The Israeli connection with the lands of Palestine is based on security, and on the idea that it is “the land flowing with milk and honey” (Torah). When the milk and honey stop flowing and they lose security, it’s over! Why did I talk about a liberation of Palestine in stages? The scene that we can already glimpse for the future of Israel is these Zionists who pack up and leave, via airports, ports, borders, crossing points. This is the scene that will (inevitably) happen.
Al-Aqsa Flood powerfully laid, or completed, the foundations of this scene. Do you want proof? Alright. I will read to you a statement from the current Israeli Minister of War, [Yoav] Galant. Many Israelis say the same thing, but I will relate his words to you. He declared: “Without the achievement of the announced objectives of the war…”, namely the liquidation of Hamas, the release of prisoners alive and without negotiation, these are the announced objectives, and security, political or administrative control over the strip of Gaza, which is one of the unannounced objectives, “Without the achievement of the announced objectives of the war, we will be in a situation where the problem will be that the (Israeli) citizens will not be willing to live…” not only around Gaza, not just in the North, on the border with Lebanon. Galant says the problem will not only be those displaced from the area around Gaza, and the border with Lebanon, but that “(Israeli) citizens will not be willing to live in this country.” Why is that? “Because we don’t know how to protect them.” What does that mean ? He states that if Israel does not achieve the aims of the war, they will have lost the fundamental pillar on which the survival of the State of Israel rests. And I declare to him that with the grace of God, you will not be able to achieve the objectives of the war. You will not be able to achieve the objectives of the war.
The Al-Aqsa Flood also ended the myth of Palestine as the world’s only safe haven for Jews. The conception of Zionism is that Jews were not safe anywhere in the world except in occupied Palestine, in the Israeli entity. The Al-Aqsa Flood and what is happening on all fronts, yes, what is happening on all fronts, even though the main battlefield is Gaza, what is happening in Gaza first and foremost, and also in the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the region has shaken this foundation, and will collapse the concept and idea of safe haven on which the emigration of millions of Jews (to Palestine) was based. And the reverse migration began. Reverse migration has already begun. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have left occupied Palestine (since October 7), most of them elites, wealthy people, etc.
12/ The image of Israel’s power has been shattered. This Israel which presents itself to such or such Arab country that I will not name, promising that it will protect and defend them, will send them its air force and its Iron Dome, that it represents security, infallible intelligence services and advanced technologies, this image of a powerful and capable Israel has collapsed. And Israel is now in a position of needing to be defended. So imagine what Israel’s situation would be if the Americans and their aircraft carriers had not come to the Mediterranean. Israel needed such intervention from the United States from the very first days.
13/ The extent of direct losses at more than one level, to an unprecedented degree (in the history of the Zionist entity). Human losses, killed, injured and disabled: the figures communicated by Israel are much lower than reality. On our Lebanese front, in the north of occupied Palestine, Israel does not recognize any killed or wounded, but they number in the thousands. I will talk about it in detail in my speech scheduled for this Friday (January 5), with the grace of God. The (very large) number of vehicles and tanks whose destruction is announced every day (by the Resistance factions), the psychological situation…
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reports that as a result of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and its aftermath, so far, 300,000 new people have requested psychiatric care. 300,000 people requested psychiatric care! Will they stay here (in occupied Palestine)? That’s very unlikely! There are dangers, fear, worry, there is no security, and a difficult psychological situation. Do you want to live in peace? Let those who have a US passport return to the United States, let the British return to Great Britain, the French to France, etc. This is the only future available to you, O Israelis. And the land of Palestine, from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea, belongs only and exclusively to the noble, fighting, enduring and patient Palestinian people, and to no one else!
Israel therefore has a (very worrying) psychological situation, reverse migration, hundreds of thousands of displaced people, even if they conceal the real figures. A few days ago they declared that in the north (on the Lebanese border) there were only 60 to 70,000 displaced people, in order to diminish the importance of this front, but Netanyahu made a slip of the tongue one day and said there were 100,000. And a few days ago, a US newspaper reported Israeli officials saying there were 230,000 displaced people in the north of occupied Palestine. All these displaced people represent a burden for the enemy government (which had to rehouse them, provide for their needs, etc.). Not to mention the economy, which has been slowing down or even is at a standstill for 3 months: there is no tourism, no agriculture, no industry. And what is Israel without an economy? The cost amounts to tens of billions of dollars, and US aid will not succeed in filling this financial gap. Of course, in this regard, the action of our brothers in Yemen in the Red Sea has a huge influence on the Israeli economy.
14/ The Israeli’s unability and failure to achieve even the slightest of its objectives. Israel has not achieved the slightest of its (military) objectives (announced in Gaza). Do not imagine that if today the United States is asking Israel to withdraw from the cities (of Gaza), it is out of fear for (the lives of) the Palestinians: it is for the Israelis that they fear! It is possible that our brothers in the Palestinian Resistance ardently wish that the Israeli (soldiers) remain where they are, in the cities, to continue to eliminate them morning and evening, by the destruction of their tanks and vehicles, sniper operations, direct targeting, etc. Israel has not achieved any goals. They were unable to free any prisoners alive. They have not been able until now, and will never be able to impose their political will on the Gaza Strip, nor on the future form of the administration of Gaza.
15/ Another very important result obtained which will accelerate the death of this entity is the (unprecedented) scale of internal divisions. Just wait until the war stops. All (Israeli political and military leaders) without exception, even within the same party, hold a dagger hidden behind their back, and as soon as the war ends, and the questions, demands, commissions of inquiry and trials begin, we will see which Israel will emerge from the Al-Aqsa Flood (they are united today because it is wartime, but as soon as it is over, everyone will tear each other apart).
16/ The fact that the United States has been unmasked in the eyes of the whole world. After the neo-conservatives and the atrocious massacres perpetrated (by the Bush administration) in Afghanistan and Iraq, they gave us Obama, a Black man whose father was called Hussein, with African and Muslim roots, and whatnot. They have thus worked to restore their image in the Arab-Muslim world. And this deception worked to a certain extent. Then came the sedition of the Arab Spring, the sedition of ISIS – it was the Americans who created ISIS and they then presented themselves as the protectors of the Iraqi people against ISIS – and therefore tried to improve their image. One of the most important results of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is that it shattered the image of the United States, exposing it to its most abject realities. The most abject realities of the United States have been revealed (to the whole world, and to the Arab-Muslim world in particular). Because today, those who kill in Gaza are the United States, US decisions, US policies, US missiles and US shells. Those who are preventing the end of the war against Gaza are the United States.
Those who veto the UN Security Council are the United States. And the brazenness of the United States has reached the point where its spokespersons claim that Israel does not deliberately target civilians. 22,000 civilian martyrs, the vast majority of them women and children, but Israel does not deliberately target civilians, this is a mistake my dear friends, it is only “collateral damage”. Israel does not deliberately kill civilians or journalists. It clearly appears that it is the United States which is outside the international community, international law, international resolutions, human rights and humanist and humanitarian values (and which opposes them and constantly flout).
17/ And the last point that I submit to you before arriving at the last part of my speech, which will not be long, is that in what is happening in Gaza, there is a lesson for all of us: it is clearly established that international institutions, international organizations, the international community and international law are incapable of protecting any people whatsoever. They are incapable of protecting anyone. Remember this lesson, O Lebanese! There are still people in our country who, until today, despite 22,000 martyrs in Gaza, nearly 60,000 wounded, (despite this mass massacre which is taking place) under the helpless eyes of the international community, there are still those in Lebanon who tell Hezbollah to disarm, because the international community and international resolutions would be enough to protect Lebanon (in the event of an Israeli aggression). I’m sorry to say it, but it’s no longer a question of divergent points of view, where everyone has their own perspective and everyone’s opinions should be respected. Not at all. These people are blindly stubborn. The hearts, eyes and lucidity (of these people) are completely blind. “Truly it is not their eyes that are blind but their hearts which are in their breasts. » (Quran, 22, 46) Is this not the undeniable truth today?
What does this experience teach us? And here I enter the last part of my remarks. This experience teaches that if we are weak, the world will not give us any credit, will not protect us, will not defend us and will not even shed a tear over our fate! Even tears, we will be deprived of them! What protects us is our strength, our courage, our grip, our weapons, our missiles and our presence on the battlefield! If we are strong, we can make the world respect us! Despite the severe blockade strangling Gaza, despite the enormous oppression inflicted on Gaza, if Gaza had fallen in the first days, everything would be over, and no one in the world would have mourned it. It is the enormous moral force, and the limited material force of the Gaza Resistance, of the people of Gaza, of the men, women and children of Gaza, which are a form of force, which were able to impose themselves on the world. This is why the whole world is changing its mind, reconsidering things, looking for solutions. Why? Because there is a show of strength in Gaza, despite the unspeakable oppression (suffered by its people).
All these results, which are only some of the achievements of the Al-Aqsa Flood, for there are still many others, and still others to come, I assure you that what happened since October 7 until today, and what will happen subsequently, has weakened Israel, shaken the whole entity, and shaken its very foundations and pillars. And yes, as our Palestinian brothers rightly say, all this has placed Israel on the path to annihilation, and all of us will witness with our own eyes the disappearance of the usurping entity, with the grace of God! And (when it happens), no one will be able to protect it. No one will be able to defend it. As for the Arab thrones (normalizing countries and allies of Israel), let them start by protecting themselves (because they are also shaking). […]
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
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Less familiar is the FBI’s ubiquitous practice of inducing people to commit crimes in order to justify its continued existence and its continued receipt of taxpayer-funded largess. That practice involves entrapping people into committing crimes and then proudly patting itself on the back for “keeping America safe” by supposedly busting dangerous criminals.
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